Why I think modx beats all other CMS that I have tried to far (I built sites using more than 5 other popular CMS)
Rating: 10 out of 10
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Great system, really flexible, really fast, really secure especially when hardened (which only takes a few minutes and no plugins are required unlike other CMS)...
Content creation is easy, however this often depends on how it was implemented, a bad implementation (like in any other CMS) will make content creators dislike the system, hence good implementation is key. This would also be the case in any other CMS. If implemented correctly it is way easier [and is] more enjoyable to use than wordpress. For example have had client that came from a WP as well as a typo3 background and they preferred MODX.
As a designer you are not limited to anything. No html code is generated by the CMS. Hence anything goes, we have even build apps that only output json, and the client edits the pages all the same on the backoffice. Very few limits.
Writing custom code is easy using "snippets" hence it is extremely scalable.
It is also fast, really fast, faster than most out of the box, even faster than many flat-file CMS.
Bad things are, that the learning curve is higher than in other cms, and that the community is not as big. However they are very active on slack and questions get answered very fast.
Hosting can be done by MODX directly using their cloud (for a monthly fee), or on your own server.
And it is mature, all in all it is our fav CMS out there.
Pros
- Customize, no limits anything is possible in terms of design and output.
- Scalable, can grow fast in terms of page numbers and still serve them faster than most CMS out there.
- Security - its really secure esp if you harden it. Knock on wood, but we never had a MODX site hacked.
- Fast - caching is great really great speeds
- Quality add ons - instead of 1000000 plugins MODX has a few that are written really well and do everything you need, fast and optimized.
Cons
- Releases - MODX 3 is taking long to get released
- Small community
Likelihood to Recommend
[MODX is well suited for] all websites, from blogs to corporate sites. It is fast scalable and really good. A small site can be build really fast, and a large site can be made extremely scalable. A website redesign is easy to implement with a new template, without having to redo the content. It got great user groups and users and back-office access can be completely customized.
While ecommerce is possible with some really good plugins I would only use MODX with ecommerce for sites where ecommerce is not the primary role. For pure ecommerce sites rather use a dedicated system like e.g. prestashop (i would say the same thing with other ecommerce plugins e.g. WP woo commerce don't do it unless its a site add on.)
PS
Philipp Schmidt
Owner in Information Technology at ServingPixels (1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
13 years of experience